Fort Resolution elder, grieving daughter's death, calls for alcohol vote

Ten days after his wife's death this past summer, Leonard Beaulieu rushed to a hospital in Yellowknife to be by his daughter's side. Dawna Beaulieu was on life support, after mixing drugs and alcohol.

"My daughter, I didn't even know she was sick," Beaulieu said.

A few days later, Dawna's children decided to take her off life support.

"It was sad," Leonard Beaulieu told CBC. "I don't swear much, but I really cursed."

Now, the 73-year-old elder sits alone in the house where he spent 20 years raising his family, watching TV and drinking coffee.

There's a small picture of Dawna, pinned to Beaulieu's fridge. Her photo is surrounded by dozens more, of his other children and grandchildren, who mostly live out of town.

Beaulieu still has a wall full of Dawna's jigging trophies from competitions she used to enter throughout the South Slave and northern Alberta.

Now, Beaulieu is asking leadership in his community of Fort Resolution to consider holding a plebiscite to decide whether there should be more restrictions on alcohol in the community. He hopes to prevent more deaths like his daughter's.

Beaulieu says many people in his community have died because of alcohol or drug addiction.

"[The hamlet] can make rules, you can make some laws and force the RCMP to back it up," Beaulieu said.

Restrictions in 1980s created 'a whole new set' of problems

To hold a plebiscite, the hamlet council must first pass a resolution calling for one. Then, the vote will be approved by the territory's minister of finance, who is also in charge of the N.W.T. Liquor Commission.

Patrick Simon, mayor of Fort Resolution, said he hasn't heard too much from people in his community about the request for a plebiscite.

Fort Resolution had a total ban on alcohol in the 1980s, Simon said. The mayor, who was in his 20s at the time, said that some community members then turned to more dangerous forms of alcohol, like hairspray and cologne.

"[The ban] created a whole new set of problems," he said.

The community also continues to lack the "manpower" from RCMP to enforce a ban, Simon added.

"A lot of people [during the ban] were beating the system and it was hard for [RCMP] to keep the alcohol out," Simon said.

If there is interest in a plebiscite, Simon said residents should make a formal presentation to council, and then it could be looked into.

But Simon said the hamlet is more focused on creating recreation programs, providing jobs and organizing community clean up efforts.

Other N.W.T. communities, like Behchoko, enacted temporary bans during the pandemic.

Simon said that also was not considered by council members